The present invention relates to magazines including an endless length of strip material, machines including a magazine receiving station at which is positioned a transducer for recording and/or for reading signals on the strip material in the magazine, and means provided by the combination of the magazine and machine for releasably positioning the magazine at the station.
U.S. patent application No. 820,250, filed July 29, 1977, now abandoned, (incorporated herein by reference) describes a magazine comprising a housing including a fixed hub having a central opening and having a through slot extending axially across the full width of the hub and communicating with the central opening, and including a flange projecting radially outwardly from one edge of the hub; and an endless length of strip material or magnetic recording tape having a major portion wrapped about the hub to form a coil, and a minor portion extending from the innermost wrap of the coil, partially across the central opening and around the side surface of the coil to the outermost wrap of the coil. Also described is a recording and/or playback machine including a transducer at a station at which station the magazine can be releasably received, means at the station adapted for driving engagement with the minor portion of the tape to pull the tape through the slot and across the transducer, and means on the machine for guiding the tape in a precise predetermined path past the transducer.
With this arrangement it has been found that the coil of tape around the hub will shift axially along the hub to align the edges of the coil with the edges of the tape being pulled past the transducer, which results in little or no transverse tension in the tape and affords reproduction from magnetic recording tape with extremely low phase error which is particularly desirable for reproducing music in the broadcast industry.
While this system is extremely effective, the possibility still existed that some magazines could be so badly misaligned with the station on the machine that the hub did not have sufficient width to allow the coil to shift axially to align with the guides on the machine. This was possible because the entire outer surface of a flange for the magazine (which flange also provided one wall for a housing enclosing the hub and the strip material for the magazine) engaged a corresponding sized surface on the machine to align the magazine with the machine. Thus any warpage of that flange in a particular magazine, or differences in thickness anywhere on that flange could affect the alignment.
Also, while the magazine is easily positioned in the station on the machine, the method of positioning it there requires access to the top of the machine. Such access may not be easily obtained where, as is commonly done, the machine is positioned below other pieces of equipment in a rack with only the front face of the rack readily accessible to an operator.